


Wrap My Breath Around You

by Elleth



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Different Formats, F/F, Ficlet Collection, Tolkien Femslash Week
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-24 19:38:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 3,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7520542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elleth/pseuds/Elleth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of various short responses for <a href="www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/tfw/">Tolkien Femslash Week Bingo 2016</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Song (Forever)

**Author's Note:**

> The collection title is from Alix Olson's [Checking My Pulse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDAjKtahYM0).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompts:  
> Story Elements: A flute  
> Tolkien Quotes: "And Indis hath my love", "May I not now spend my life as I will?"  
> Book Title: Girl Walking Backwards  
> Emotions: Hope  
> Formats/Genres: True Drabble  
> Lyrics and Poetry: “Let me find you and the song (forever) between us”
> 
> Set in the [The Beautiful Ones](http://archiveofourown.org/works/720281/chapters/1335272) 'verse, although a long time after that story takes place. (And yes, I fully intend to pick it up again to finish, although I don't want to make estimates on when that'll be.)

The sounds of a birdbone flute called Indis out of her hut, to stars above the mere, and mountains dark against the sky. The moon had not yet risen. The music shivered through the marrow of her bones with ancient force.

A solitary figure sat on a boulder by the shore. Indis, and time itself, were walking backwards, into her girlhood and freedom to spend her life as she would. “Kalrê,” she called, slipping into the tongue of her youth the scholars now termed ‘primitive’, and threaded her fingers through her lover’s golden hair, kissing it. “Do not stop playing.”


	2. White-Flowered Also

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompts:  
> Book Titles: Send My Roots Rain  
> Clichés: Flowers, Hand-holding  
> Emotions: Hope  
> Four Words: “Charade, amber, colony, moment” and “limit, daisies, cotton, hopeful”
> 
> Set in the waning days of Númenor, Tar-Míriel/OFC. Allusions to human sacrifice, but nothing graphic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nénumë is a character of mine from [The Old Maid's Tale](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3662445).

Daisies nodded in the cracks of the hilltop road’s pavement, so innocuous Míriel’s heart was near bursting. The charade of a procession followed behind her, and the flowers would be trampled and swept by cotton trains of the many hopefuls for the King’s favour. For rumors had grown loud that that day would grant Pharazôn immortality, a gift in time to be bestowed on them also, flies in amber, perfectly preserved forever.

It only took the limits of humanity. It only took colonies being pillaged of life to be sacrificed in in the temple fires, strapped to the kindling that had been Nimloth, the Line of Kings, her line. She was powerless to stop any of it, and her only consolation the vision she’d received, of a fountain raining onto a sapling’s roots. But standing on a dais in the temple at last with her servants behind her, came a feather-light touch to her hand, the curl of Nénumë’s well-loved fingers in hers for a moment, then something soft and weightless in her palm.

When she opened it: The daisies, though bruised and uprooted, and Nénumë’s breath by her ear. “Lady, dare to hope. Not the tree, but white-flowered also.”


	3. As A Cup Yielding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompts:  
> Formats and Genres: Sapphic Stanza  
> Tolkien Quotes: “Who now shall refill the cup for me?”
> 
> Galadriel to Varda, more or less obliquely NSFW.

Fill again my goblet with sweet, honeyed mead:  
My lip waits, dry; all kissing me can claim sour  
Ash as only due for the bliss paid to me,  
And faraway thoughts.

For no kisses match the one I had from you  
Whose hand, kindling stars as hearts alike, took  
my chalice from hands ever sworn to your aid  
And slaked your thirst,

And then passed sweetness from yours to my mouth,  
And a wish to learn every joy of your form,  
Although raiment only, from me, to teach you.  
High One, beneath me,

I reclaimed more swiftly the taste of sweet mead  
Drank from you all you’d give, as a cup yielding  
Draughts like míruvor on my tongue, yet burning  
Ever ago, down years

Upon ages, and you, behind the bent seas,  
And with hands raised as clouds, sit drinking  
Still, from cups not mine, as thirsting I yearn for  
Your summons to mead.


	4. River's Voice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompts:  
> Emotions: Confidence, Courage  
> Formats: Haiku  
> Story Elements: Violets  
> Tolkien Quotes: “Mithrellas, one of the companions of Nimrodel…" 
> 
> How Mithrellas became Nimrodel's companion.

Mithrellas, running,  
Violets at her feet bloom  
Down to the river.

For there, though absent,  
Sings Nimrodel's voice, laughing  
In the cold waters.

To confessions, prayers:  
 _Have confidence, courage, love,_  
The stream says. _She hears._


	5. Fox, Resting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompts:   
> Lyrics and Poetry: "I want a woman’s wit, swift as a fox"   
> Tolkien Quotes: "[Dís] is the only Dwarf-woman named in these histories"  
> Four Words: exile, hands, diversion, perception

In exile from the Lonely Mountain, Dís keeps busy. Not merely her hands - she soon becomes renowned as the swiftest wit in the Blue Mountains, admired for her mind-skill, and it is by her designs that Thorin’s Hall grows wealthy.

It’s good to be so occupied, lest grief overwhelm her for all that lies behind in rocks and ruin, and her heart runs trails like a fox eluding a relentless hunter. There is only one snare, one diversion. Kjós the brewer with her russet beard, her perception, and laugh like gems blinking. Like to like, Dís trusts she can rest.


	6. Make a Bird of Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompts:  
> Clichés: Breakfast in Bed, Curtain Fic, Gift-Giving, Domesticity  
> Lyrics and Poetry: “I sing for love, I sing for me, I'll shout it out like a bird set free”
> 
> Nellas and Niënor wander in Doriath in summer. References [Sweet Water and Gold](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1036062), where Nellas re-named Niënor _Ninglor_.

“Would that I could sing out what my heart says, seeing you first each day when I wake.” 

From the fire, Nellas looked up, smiling at Niënor who pushed herself up on her elbows in the bedroll and sniffed the scent rising from the birch-bark sack that Nellas had strung over the flame. “Tea?” she asked, and Nellas nodded. “Mint for the morning. It is not much of a meal, but it is warm, and we will come past a pheasant run if we strike north toward Aros later, then we can eat.”

“Warmth is enough for me,” Niënor said and reached out for a proffered cup without rising.

“But why do you not sing?” Nellas asked, letting their fingers brush and relishing the caress in a heart-skip. She nestled to Niënor’s side, and wound an arm around her middle, slipping her fingers along the seam of Niënor’s shirt until she found the warm skin beneath. Niënor’s breath caught, but she pulled away before the beginnings of her smile bloomed into more.

“Mourning does not lend itself well to song - least of all about love. I am afraid if I do it -” Niënor took a sip of tea to bide her time, and smoothed down a mussed strand of hair,“ - I shall give it all away. Ears that ought not hear might take notice.”

“But - do you not remember my gift? I made it so you could be free of this name and of its shadow. Ninglor. Will you not sing?” A flutter of hurt made itself known through Nellas’ chest. They had found the lily bank along the brook only the day before, and Niënor had emerged from the water sputtering and laughing as though her new name had washed away all the cares that wore on her.

“It is not so easy,” Niënor said, her voice quiet with apology. “Would that my life until my coming to Doriath were oblivion so I could sing with the birds, like one that has flown from its cage and not merely into another one that is larger, and fairer. But you - you may yet make such a bird of me, given time enough.”


	7. Hilt-First

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt:  
> Lyrics and Poetry: “And all my swords have turned to words that blow like poems in the wind” 
> 
> AU; Aredhel/Haleth.

Gondolin is snaring in its brightness, dulling blades into poetry that rings gently to the sound of a harp in a shut room, not the clash of metal and the free air that Aredhel longs for. So she flees, and wanders aimlessly, happily, eastward. There it is the very sound she missed - metal and the noise of fighting - that draws her, and after distrust passes, the women of that land open their ranks for her. Aredhel stands with their chieftain, and Haleth raises her voice in a battle song while her sword points, hilt-first and heart-high, for Aredhel to grasp.


	8. Breath for Breaking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompts:
> 
> NSFW/Kink: Breathplay  
> Emotions: Lust   
> Formats/Genres: Drabble Series  
> Four Words: ocean, thousand, ceramic, fever 
> 
> Tar-Míriel after the Fall of Númenor. Dubiously NSFW. I think?

I  
Fever crawls along Míriel’s veins with every pulse and throb of her lungs as the water pulls her under, the ocean merciless and violent with a thousand hands of water over her mouth, her nose, pushing inside her, and in desperation she opens herself, her lips, her legs. If she surrenders herself yet again, as with her first plunge as a fear-filled offering to the hungry waves then perhaps, perhaps there will be mercy, perhaps there will be life. Perhaps she’ll be lifted, like Elwing, as a seabird to fly and find her beloved, not shatter like precious, fragile ceramic.

II   
If only she could find the Faithful ships riding landward before the ocean wave that swallowed Númenor - but she isn’t lifted, isn’t saved. Instead her fever goes into a panic as she is whirled through muddy waters the thousandth time and delirium builds shapes from the blur that threatens to overwhelm her vision. She only wants - she wants to - fly until she no longer can, and find Nénumë on her way to safety, wake in her arms, have breath. Then - an abrupt tipping, or maybe rising, and a figure prominent on Númenorean ceramic winds around her. Watery lips meet hers.

III  
Míriel can breathe. A thousand needles sting at her when she does, but she can _breathe_ , impossibly, underwater, and the ocean stills and clears around her, closer to surface and above the ruin of her island. Uinen’s hands are on her, holding her safe, and something uncoils in her, near to breaking, as her head pushes past the waterline into sunrise and emptiness, and a sky the colour of blue ceramic. Feverish, she casts around for her saviour, even as the ecstasy of being saved sweeps over her and she drifts, eastward, over unmeasured miles of sea.

IV  
Uinen comes to her again every now and then, in a pod of dolphins, sometimes bearing a ceramic vessel of sweet water to let Míriel drink, sometimes as the ocean’s hand around her ankle, pulling her under until the breathless fever returns, and a voice whispers “Remember who saved you,” and the same gratitude seizes Míriel a thousand times over, the bliss of air in her lungs. Uinen never touches her despite the offer, content to toy, but never grants her wings, either - perhaps it is not her province to do so. Míriel does not jeopardize her survival by asking.

V   
A thousand days or none may have passed when Míriel reaches land - a beach swept with debris, ceramic, monumental blocks of white rock, perhaps even from her own palace, jewelry and pearls that glitter like the songs say of the Blessed Realm’s shore. She has barely any eyes for it as, weak with fever, she presses her lips into the sand, and turns her back on the ocean to go stumbling to the black-sailed ship on an inland hillside, the dots of fires, and there is Nénumë. And Míriel, remembering her saviour, begs as they kiss, “Please make me breathless.”


	9. Steeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompts: 
> 
> Book Titles: Songs of Silk   
> NSFW: Discipline   
> Four Words: battalion, unsure, headstart, bliss 
> 
> Morwen and Aerin perform a necessary exercise. (CW for implied abuse as reason for this scene. NSFW.)

Aerin twists under the warm palm stroking her ass through the worn silk shift - old, too expensive for the likes of her now. She pushes upward, bites her lips for quiet. It’s not a headstart into bliss, it’s a steeling exercise. Sharp smacks sing through the fabric lying flat again on heated skin, repeat until it feels like a battalion of unsure blows, and she imagines the red flush on the back of her thighs, before Morwen’s finger, almost cool, pushes to the center of her heat.

Her reward for the silence, and it’s from Morwen only she’ll take it.


	10. Icy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emotions: Longing  
> Formats/Genres: Fanon Subverted (the fanon being that there’d be requited feelings for Aredhel if Elenwë had survived Helcaraxë)  
> Four Words: below, ankle, invisible, glacier
> 
> Unrequited Aredhel/Elenwë on Helcaraxë.

The glaciers below them shift, crack, yawn, and gullets of dark water open suddenly to swallow the unwary. They sink, swiftly invisible, into the sea. Elenwë is not one of them - she makes the leap to safety and into Írissë’s arms when she steps through the ice to her ankle, and is caught, safely - and then she’s let go with reluctance and regret, fingers stretching until they can reach no longer. For though Írissë loves her, the response is pity, and a kiss to her forehead, and sometimes she wishes that Elenwë had plunged, keeping her longing futile but hopeful.


	11. Stone to Pity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompts: 
> 
> Clichés: Insomnia  
> Book Titles: The Stone Gods, I Can’t Think Straight  
> Lyrics and Poetry: "You were the first person on Earth"  
> Tolkien Quotes: "What is the name of this thing? For in my darkness I lost it." and "Those who hearken to her learn pity and endurance in hope"  
> NSFW: Comfort sex   
> Story Elements: A gold vein
> 
> After Fëanor’s death, Nienna offers comfort to Nerdanel. Mildly NSFW, with implied Fëanor/Nerdanel.

The Valar were of stone, or so Nerdanel said - or, worse than stone, when she lay sleepless and weeping in her father’s garden with their statues immovable around her, in coloured rock and paint and eyes of glass that seemed to be watching her. Not even Nienna, wrought in dark grey shot with gold veins like tears over her face (for Nerdanel had once found it fitting, abstract, when her life had been all bliss that she now barely recalled - as though she’d lost the word in the darkness) moved to take pity on her when even stone had yielded under her sculptress hands.

“Child, I know that he is gone. It will be long ere his fire dims enough for him to heal, but that does not mean that he is forever lost.”

“I no longer care!” She did not pause to consider whence the voice came, or the tears dripping onto her face. Her own eyes were dry, and she rose as though compelled to the touch of a hand not her own - dark, warm stone, gold in her fingertips also.

“I do not believe you,” murmured the voice. A weight of warm stone came to rest against her shoulder, and wet patches grew in the fabric, cool and soothing and a counterpoint of the fire that she still felt consuming her, out of that awful dream of a height across the sea. “But I do not mind. I am Weeping, I can weep for one more lie in the world.”

“I am sick of weeping!”

“Then hearken to me, Child.” Hands on her hip pulled Nerdanel into an embrace, and where there should be stone, she found living flesh, wet with tears under her hands, with no raiment to cover her. It was said that Nienna had been the first to descend into Arda and that from her, not Ulmo, had sprung the salt water that had housed the first life on Arda, and Nerdanel felt her mind reeling and unable to hold on to any straight, stable thought that someone so ancient and holy should be with her.

Her lips opened to the taste of salt all the same, and when Nienna laid her down and rained tears upon her as her tongue worked relentlessly on Nerdanel’s body, the ache of fire slowly faded, shifted, and drowned.


	12. Pearls and Wine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Formats/Genres: Popular Fanon (being that Lobelia is grasping and awful)  
> NSFW/Kink: Gags   
> Story Elements: A pearl necklace   
> Tolkien Quotes: "But Lobelia was not so easily got rid of.“
> 
> Pearl Took decides to teach Lobelia a lesson of sorts.

"They say you’re a magpie that goes stealing silver spoons; that’s not befitting the likes of you. Grabville-Sackit they’ve been calling you.” Lobelia bit down on the gag between her lips, the clack of pearls that the insipid Took, with a far prettier name than she deserved, had stuffed in her mouth to stop her shouting.

She was too old for it, for kissing-friends, not that the - the girl, pretty as she was, was a _friend_ , the way she held her hands caught and breathed wine-sweet into her face.

If only she let her go - oh, Lobelia would _show_ her.


	13. Resteth Not Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompts:
> 
> Book Titles: Spring Fire, The Paying Guests  
> Clichés: Slow Dancing, Forehead Touching  
> Story Elements: Autumn Light  
> (Also Fíriel on the Women of Númenor because I was stumped for a character.)
> 
> The prayer that Fíriel sings is from her appearance in _The Lost Road_ , but I updated Herendil's name to Isildur as Elendil's son to make this a little less bewildering.

Fíriel sang again from the window, and her voice rang sweet and sad into the evening. She’d done so every day since early summer, when the _lavaralda_ hedges at the lower end of the garden had begun their blooming, and always the same song that echoed in now-familiar verses, even now that the year was rolling on to autumn and its swifter sunsets, and Orontor, her father, had still not returned. “Lovely is Númenor. But my heart resteth not here for ever; for here is ending, and there will be an end and the Fading…”

Isildur stood in the garden below, with his head tipped back to look at her, until the song ceased. Fíriel smiled sadly at him and waved goodnight before she went into her room to shut the curtains behind her, and he turned to disappear behind the hedge where the cliff dropped into the sea. He had wanted to swim before night fell.

Merilin went into the house and took the steps to Fíriel’s room two at once. Unhappy jealousy was churning in her stomach, but her resolve to speak her mind evaporated suddenly when she found the door to Fíriel’s room unlocked, and before her eyes had adjusted to the gloom, heard her weeping.

“Fíriel? Fíriel.”

The weeping ceased. A breath hitched in the darkness; Fíriel’s dark head lifted from her bed.

“Merilin?”

“You are weeping.”

She felt like a fool, but could speak no further before Fíriel stumbled across the room toward her; the waves of her thick hair, scented with rose oil, brushed over her face, and Fíriel leaned in to rest her forehead against Merilin’s. They were of a height, Fíriel perhaps a little taller. She was still breathing heavily. “I know why you came. I saw you in the garden, but please, let me speak —”

Merilin shifted, pressing their lips together first, until Fíriel pulled away with an unsteady laugh.

“ — the Lord Elendil - he had a letter from my father that he was asked to show me when the seasons turned and he hadn’t come back, and he… he hasn’t. Perhaps the King’s Men took him, over the sea. It’s said that they’re swarming like locusts there, that there’s no escaping them,” she said.

“And he wants to see me provided for, and safe - don’t you see — we’re both only guests here, not even paying guests, with no payment asked of us, and that is owed to Elendil’s graciousness alone, and his love for my father. And now - his grace grew even greater and I’m to be married to Isildur, and you to Anárion. I heard it from your mother, and I couldn’t say how I love you; they would not understand.” Fíriel’s hand closed around Merilin’s with painful strength, and the other found the back of her neck and pulled her into another kiss that Merilin refused to break until Fíriel, again, was the one who pulled away. “And I saw you in the autumn light below when you were reading in the garden this afternoon, and I don’t want you as my sister by marriage, I want you for myself.”

“But we’re Faithful - Elendil’s house is safer for us than other places, but only as far as the King finds a reason to send his Men against him. He’s the leader of the Elf-friends, sooner or later they’ll seize all of us, if we marry into this family! Your father was mistaken!”

A petulant note crept into Fíriel’s sadness. “And so are you - about Isildur and me! He is teaching me to sail as a gift to me - if I catch Ilmalómë’s heart for him. He doesn’t want me either, and he’ll aid me - us - with our escape. But we’re not sailing for the colonies. We’re sailing for the north where the Elf-King lives, before the King starts the spring fires in the temple.”

“I - will you sing?” Merilin blurted out from the jumble of thoughts, astonished. “Not - not that awful prayer you sing every night. Something sweeter.”

“I will,” Fíriel said. “If you promise to run with me.”

“Then sing.”

Fíriel twined her fingers through Merilin’s, and lifted their linked hands into the darkness above their heads in the manner of an Emerië folk-dance of young lovers, one that had been danced at the wedding of Tar-Ancalimë’s serving women. Fíriel was skilled in song, and lifted her voice only a little, pressing their foreheads together while they slowly turned circles, and Fíriel sang.

“Lovely is Númenor. But my heart resteth not here forever, for it resteth with you forever, and there will be no end and no Fading, for love is not counted, and may not be numbered at last, and yet will be not enough, not enough…”


	14. Crown-Gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompts: 
> 
> Emotions: Joy  
> Formats and Genres: AU  
> Four Words: Early, skyline, almost, mask and proposal, drifting, lock, mortal  
> NSFW: Blindfolds
> 
> Idril has a proposal for Rían. (AU; Rían lives.)

It is early morning and the Echoriath are tinted pink with sunrise that has not yet touched the the skyline of Gondolin’s towers. It vanishes behind a mask of dark fabric coming down over her eyes, and warm lips come drifting over the curve of her shoulder. Rían stills and laughs softly, not to wake the sleeping city. “My lady,” she breathes, and the chuckle behind her gives away her lover. Mortal as she is, she never expected expected to find more than safety - indeed, find love anew, after her husband and homeland fell - in the Hidden City. For a time she wished to die, and might have perished grieving in the waste, had not the eagles seized and carried her from the Hill of the Slain. Might have, still, if not for Idril.

“I have a proposal to make, beloved,” Idril says against her skin. “Crown-gift you are called, and yet no crown graces your head.” Something touches her locks, feather-light. “I would change that, and gift you one - and gift myself. My father will allow it if you do.”

Impossible joy floods her; she pulls the blindfold loose to see Idril and her crown. “I will! I will!”


	15. My Fairest Bed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompts: 
> 
> Book Titles: The Grass Widow, Waiting in the Wings  
> NSFW: Foreplay  
> Lyrics and Poetry: “And I said Venice and you heard Vegas”  
> Tolkien Quotes: “Their robes the wind, their raiment air…”
> 
> Erendis and her maid steal a moment in the country.

“Don’t call me this nonsense,” Erendis chides, quick and sharp with stuttering breath while her maid unlaces her dress and nips down over the exposed ridges of her spine. “The grass hasn’t widowed me - Emerië is my fairest bed, better than the palace’s. The sea did, and Aldarion himself.”

Tittering laughter, Ûrîphêl pulls the dress up over her hips, impatient, and strips her entirely. “I’ve been waiting in the wings ever since he sailed the first time, the prick.”

Despite herself, Erendis also laughs. It’s easier to breathe with air and grass and Ûrîphêl being all that’s on her body.


	16. On Nights of Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompts: 
> 
> Story Elements: A will-o’-the-wisp, Thunder  
> Four Words: Thunder, fragment, apple, arch and silver, tangle, rainfall, dormant  
> Lyrics and Poetry: “But the rain is full of ghosts tonight”
> 
> The Lady of the Blue Brooch dreams of her lover.

She dreams in fragments - rolling thunder and silver lightning over tangled branches, the arch of Nîniphêl’s back illuminated, and rainfall patterns cold over the hallowed pool. A will-o’-the-wisp leading her way that winter, sweet apples in the house under the river. That’s past, Ivriluin knows, yet can’t shake her encounters with the River-Daughter, especially on nights of rain. The memories won’t lie dormant; neither will she.

Her husband grunts, sleeps on, and turns over in the bed. Ivriluin reaches for the blue brooch she wears always on her shoulder, the smooth jewels, wishing she had the courage to run again.


	17. Sunlight Free the Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompts: 
> 
> Format: Fix-It  
> Lyrics and Poetry: “Love until we burn up”   
> Four Words: Bloom, devour, blinding, alliance and humble, linear, comet, marble
> 
> Arwen at the end of her days. Arien will have none of it. (Character death of sorts; the title is from the LotR Musical’s _Song of Hope._ )

Aragorn sleeps in a marble vault when Arwen turns her back on Minas Tirith, striking north. The sun of spring is a comfort when weariness drags her heels into the earth to devour and humble her. Rather, she thinks, laughing lonely in the wilderness, that the Evenstar should be a comet hurling herself into the sun on a linear course to bloom a last time before the alliance with her people fails entirely.

Let none say that the Queens of the Eldar do not know how to die proudly.

And the sun, Arwen learns, has heard her. Arien waits in withered Lothlórien, to greet the latest of her children: the sunlight has ever been the province of mortals. And Arwen seizes the chance, presses lips to flesh that is hot to the touch, looks into eyes that should sear her sight away – and do not. “You and I are akin - stars both,” Arien says, “and the light of your house is bright yet. It would be wasted here. Come. You, also, belong in the sky.”

Arwen surrenders herself and burns, blinding, in Arien’s arms on a bed of _elanor_. It is over too swiftly - but they rise together as flames.


End file.
